Culinary Transitions: Understanding the Kitchen Space through Advertisements

Kashyapi Ghosh¹ and V. Vamshi Krishna Reddy²

¹Ph.D Scholar, IIT Tirupati. ORCID: 0000-0001-5394-6076. Email: hs18d504@iittp.ac.in

²Assistant Professor, University of Hyderabad. ORCID: 0000-0003-0383-6287

Email: vamshi.vemireddy@uohyd.ac.in

 Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.13

Abstract

The kitchen is a ubiquitous space in the Indian domestic life. Yet there hasn’t been a lot of academic discourses around it possibly owing to its mundane nature. In this article, I aim to look into the gendered nature of the space through advertisements. Advertisements are digital documents of everyday life This article deliberates on the notion that the kitchen space in urban India is undergoing a change in representation and participation. This change is reflected in the advertisements, created keeping in mind the perception of its viewers. The gendered segregation of work done in the home space have been deliberated by a number of scholars. This article problematises those viewpoints and challenges DeVault’s notion of “womanly conduct” through the narrative of the advertisements.

Keywords: advertisements, gender, kitchen space.